Texas blows 10-point lead, uses Hail Mary for halftime lead

Posted by Kevin McGuire on October 3, 2013, 8:55 PM EDT

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Texas took a 10-0 lead in the first quarter, but anyone who has watched Thursday night games played at Iowa State would tell you that things are never as easy they appear in Ames. Iowa State took control in the second quarter and looked to have a 13-10 lead in to the half, but a Hail Mary pass from Case McCoy to John Harris as time expired gave the Longhorns a 17-13 lead to completely reverse the momentum of the game.

Texas took the game’s opening drive all the way down field for a touchdown when running back Johnathan Gray ran straight up the middle for a 45-yard touchdown scamper. The Longhorns added an Anthony Fera field goal late in the first quarter to take a 10-0 lead. All was looking good for the visiting Longhorns at the time, who also picked up the first lost fumble by Iowa State this season to tack on the extra three points.

But Iowa state wasted little time in mounting their comeback. A 37-yard field goal by Cole Netten put the Cyclones on the board early in the second quarter and a beautifully executed swing pass from Sam Richardson to Aaron Wimbley out of a timeout resulted in an 11-yard touchdown to tie the game with four and a half minutes to play. Netten would add a late field goal for the 13-10 lead.

Now, does Iowa State not let that last play of the half bother them? The Cyclones had all of the momentum in the second quarter until a collapse at the end. Texas gets the ball to start the second half, so the Longhorns have a chance to once again build a double-digit lead and hope to hold on to it.

Mack Brown will be let go as Texas for the simple reason that the Alabama victory against Texas was the beginning of the end for Mack.

Why?

Mack wanted to be like Saban. Build an above average defense and pound the ball down the opposition’s throat. Mack lost Texas’s identity. He decided to bring in Manny Diaz from Mississippi State as defensive coordinator with the idea of building an elite SEC type defense. He wanted a huge offensive line to play smash ball offense.

Trouble was, he didn’t have the pipeline of athletes to do that. His recruiting success
was predicated on the spread offense with speed receivers and a dual threat superior athlete in the QB position. So Mack is in no where land between two conflicting offenses
and no athletes for either. Sure he was getting the cream of the crop in recruits, but he kept chasing kids off because of a philosophy he did not have a grasp of.

Saban kept it simple. He recruited kids that want to play at the next level and he designed
his system to be NFL centric on defense and offense.

Mack tried to adapt and failed. Saban is enjoying a run that I know will end someday.

Texas didn’t help itself when it opened the state to the SEC and to a lesser extent the AAC. Kids want to play at the top level of BCS competition. By Deloss chasing a quarter of the original Big 12 away, it allowed other schools and conferences to come in and develop great ties with Texas HS coaches. Texas and Mack are now paying that price.

I think Be4Bama knows that the Texas/Alabama NC game in the Rose Bowl was far from a blow out….this game has been litigated so many times on this and other boards, but UT’s starting QB was knocked out on the second series of the game, gave Bama 5 easy turnovers, a gift td right before halftime, and trailed 24-6…UT’s defense shut down the Tide in the 2nd half with 8 future pro’s on Alabama’s offense and were within 24-21 with less than four minutes left….two more turnovers, and a late td by bama made the score look more lopsided than the game actually was.

in a round about way, I agree with amosalonzo staggs post about Brown trying to emulate Saban or the SEC in general by trying to change his offense during the 2010 off season from a spread specific one to a heavy run based package…it was an epic fail….you wont see a school like Oregon or Texas Tech or Houston or Georgia Tech change from their identity…they are who you thought they were and you know what you are getting……I dont know why the hell Mack Brown thought he was going to be a power running team after being led by mobile QB’s and great WR’s for the previous decade

Mack is still trying to recover from that error, and this is probably why is hell bent on staying until he can get a couple of double digit win seasons and a couple of BCS bowl games. ….This season shows that they are light years away from where they were in 2009